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He wraps himself around you on nights like this, clinging to you like a security blanket while he idly fills up the latest book of Sudoku puzzles you bought for him. It’s a comfortable way to pass the time, which you would otherwise simply spend alone on this couch. You yourself have a hand tangled up in his hair, slowly picking out knots while you hold a book in the other. It’s the latest by your favorite author. To your dismay, it isn’t very good.
You close the book after reading through a heavy-handed scene.
Nights like this come more often than you'd like. Nights when things go wrong. Nights when he gets hurt. Nights when he comes to your doorstep clutching his bloody side, crying from the pain.
He’s an idiot, you think to yourself every time. He’s like a dry leaf, ready to crumble at the slightest touch, and he goes running after hardened criminals like he could stand a chance. You know he’s doing it to keep up with Sleuth and Dick. You wish he wouldn’t try so hard to impress them. You wish they understood his talents enough to keep him from joining them in the field. Maybe you should stop by their offices with your cuestick and explain it to them.
He refuses to let you take him to a hospital. He hates hospitals, won’t go near one. So you pull out the bullet, stitch his wound and wrap it up. You have enough experience at that to do a decent job. Underworld doctors are notoriously hard to get a hold of sometimes, so you’ve patched up more than one bullet wound on Slick and Boxcars. It doesn’t take long but he cries the whole time, gasping in pain each time the needle enters. You put him in some of your old clothes—too short for him, and too wide, although the same could be said of everything else he wears—while his tumble about in the wash. He clings to you for comfort while he does his puzzles to distract himself from the pain.
This is only going to keep happening. The Felt are getting more and more active and while Team Sleuth does their best to avoid them, they keep getting hired for jobs that lead them into Felt territory. Pickle Inspector doesn’t even regret it, despite all the injuries he accumulates. He’s fascinated with their powers the same way he’s fascinated with your shadow magic. It’s a puzzle to him, one that he wants to solve. He keeps a small notebook with him, most often hidden in his coat pocket, where he jots down his observations. It’s on the coffee table now. Sometimes he lets you look in it, but usually he stops you. It’s a work in progress. His conclusions aren’t to be taken seriously yet. That’s what he says.
You don’t doubt he’s capable of solving that puzzle. Maybe he could even figure out the temporal trickery needed to take down the Felt’s leader, if he can stay alive long enough. And normally he would even have the sense to stay in the shadows, to stay unseen as he makes his observations. But then Sleuth and Dick come blundering in and your dear Inspector bends to peer pressure like grass in the wind. He waves his key around like a damn idiot and it doesn’t matter how quick he is to shoot. Itchy is always quicker.
“Di—Did you finish your book already?” he asks you as he turns a page, his last puzzle finished in no time at all.
“It isn’t worth finishing,” you say, tossing it aside.
“I’m sorry,” he says, as though it’s actually something he should apologize for.
You wrap your now-free arm around him and pull him closer, making him drop his pencil. He rests his head on your shoulder—he’s slouching as always, but you don’t mind—and closes his eyes.
“We could go to the book store tomorrow, maybe, i-if you’re not busy,” he says. “There should be something you’d like.”
“I’d like that,” you say.
He smiles faintly for a moment, pushing his own book aside and returning your embrace. He holds on tightly as though afraid you might try to escape. Soon his smile is replaced by his usual worried look, and he looks up at you.
“M-Mister Droog, I really am sorry,” he mumbles. “For troubling you. A-all the time, I mean. Not just tonight. I’m sorry. I’ve been such a bother.”
You ruffle his hair. Nothing can make it messier than it is normally, so it doesn’t do much. “I already have three less-apologetic bothers troubling me. One more isn’t much.”
He chuckles, then doubles over in pain. You sigh as you rub his back. He breathes heavily as though he’s dying, but to be honest his wound isn’t even that bad. He’s such a damn baby.
You don’t like nights like this, but you’ll take them. Someday, maybe soon, a night may come when things will go even worse. When he won’t end up on your doorstep because he’s being shipped off to the morgue. So you try to make the most of nights like this, because soon you may not get any others.